


And there with the rest...

by bookingit



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Dreams, Friendship, Gen, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Housman quotes, Hurt/Comfort, Revenge, Season/Series 06, You've heard of Panic! at the Disco, heed the tags friends, now get ready for Angst! in the Mortuary, somebody hug Jim dammit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:47:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22309660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookingit/pseuds/bookingit
Summary: A hand reaches out for his own; he takes it, heedless of the blood sticky between their palms.“I’m here, Morse.”  He carefully, gently, adjusts his arm behind Morse’s shoulders in an attempt to keep him from slumping over. “I’m here.”
Relationships: Endeavour Morse & Fred Thursday, Endeavour Morse & Jim Strange, George Fancy & Endeavour Morse, Jim Strange & Max Debryn, Max DeBryn & Endeavour Morse
Comments: 61
Kudos: 71





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EAU1636](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EAU1636/gifts).



> Alright, ya'll.  
> I'll just... leave this here, I guess.  
> I promise, it gets better.  
> I've been working really hard on this, so PLEASE let me know what you think by leaving comments and kudos!
> 
> Also, feel free to picture Morse in this without the mustache, although this is set during series 6. Or picture him with it, if that's what you wish.  
> Either way, enjoy!

The second Jim walks back down the alley to where he’d left Morse, a sinking feeling permeates his gut.

He’d walked to the car from the rendezvous spot nearly ten minutes ago.

Morse had seemed a bit nervous, really, when he’d realized he didn’t have his notepad, patting down his jacket pockets, turning in place a couple times. He’d glanced toward the mouth of the alley before turning to Jim and smiling apologetically, asking apologetically if he wouldn’t mind running back to the car for it while he waited for their source to show.

A bit of a surprise, really, Morse asking him to come with on this one. Something about an anonymous tip on corruption within the police force.

It’d felt a bit skeevy just _leaving_ him there to wait for some unknown informant, but…

He’d be able to handle it, Morse would. Same as any other copper.

So Jim had agreed to go.

And now he knows he shouldn’t have.

The alley where he’d left Morse is empty. Jim spends a couple minutes waits impatiently for him to step out of some connecting alley.

Nothing.

Five minutes pass; while he doesn’t think Morse has gone back out on the street, he checks anyway. 

He finds him sitting against the wall of an alley a block over, hands folded over his stomach, legs stretched out in front of him.

The part of Jim that’s –not _angry_ —but … irritated… at having been run around for the better part of a half hour has him stopping short of his friend’s place on the ground and crossing his arms over his chest.

The notebook hadn’t been between or on the seats, and pressed for time, Jim had grabbed Morse’s coat

Nine times out of ten, Morse keeps the bloody thing in one of its pockets.

“You move around like this, we’ll miss the _—_ are you _bleeding?_ "

Morse lifts a hand to peer at his stomach then quickly replaces it.

“Stab wound.”

Jim kneels down and quickly brushes Morse’s hands out of the way.

Sure enough, Morse’s white shirt blooms with red in not one but _three_ different places.

Getting up, he makes to run back out of the alley, tosses Morse his coat.

“Put pressure on that, matey. Right now.”

“Strange! _Strange!_ ” Morse’s voice ricochets off the walls behind him. “Where’re you--?”

Jim shouts back over his shoulder as he runs. The street outside the alleyway is nearly empty of people.

“Calling for help. _Don’t bloody move._ ” He makes it out of the alley and runs to the car.

By the time he’s flung open the door and snatched up the radio, his hands are shaking.

“ _Officer down_. We need an ambulance.—This is DS Strange—”

He rattles off the address and leaves the radio hanging off the hook, slamming the car door as he flies out of the telephone booth back towards the alley. 

The pallor of Morse’s face in the shade of the alley makes Jim fearful as he runs toward him, but when he gets closer, he can see that the other man is still breathing, albeit shallowly.

He slides down the alley wall next to him, fearful that he’s somehow handled this wrong.

Cursing himself for not just _staying_ with him instead of walking off after a bloody _notebook_.

Carefully, he leans Morse forward and slides an arm behind his shoulders.

He’s quieter now, thinks Jim uneasily, than he was after that madman stabbed him in the Bodleian.

Then, he’d started up a bloody racket. Not that Jim had blamed him. God only knows the shock it must have been, looking down to see that he'd been bloody knifed.

Morse whimpers. 

“—hurts”

“I know, I know. No more talking, yeah, matey? I _knew_ I shouldn’t have—I leave for _ten minutes_ and you get—”

“No.” Jim tries to find relief in the fact that the reply sounds at least somewhat steady. “No, it’s fine. I… I asked you to.”

Strange holds to a bit of hope as Morse seems to press his reddening coat more tightly against his stomach in an effort to gain some strength to speak.

Jim stays still as his friend’s eyes, clear and painfully clever scan his face desperately, shakily. As though it’s his last chance to do so.

He doesn’t know if he’s ever seen the other man this grim in a piece of knowledge, this sad, this _frightened_ —

A hand reaches out for his own; he takes it, heedless of the blood sticky between their palms.

“I’m here, Morse.” He carefully, gently, adjusts his arm behind Morse’s shoulders in an attempt to keep him from slumping over. “I’m here.”

“I _tried_ ,” wheezes Morse, suddenly desperate, the supporting forearm doing nothing to prevent him from bending nearly double from the force of a cough that prevents him from finishing his sentence. Jim tries to keep him steady as he recovers his breath

“Easy, _easy--_ ” The coat is loosely gathered in Morse’s lap, and Jim presses it back to the wound.

“No, _no_ — ” That rattling breath finally comes out of a wheeze to form words. “—could’ve _confirmed it_ ,”

“Confirm--Morse, confirmed _what?_ ”

“Give— _Christ_ —this…” Morse uncurls his hand jerkily from Strange’s own to plunge into the bloodied folds of his wadded up coat before pressing a wet square of paper into Jim’s other hand.

“Put that away,” he breathes shallowly, gripping onto Jim’s fingers once more as he watches him shove the message in his pocket. “A name, a _suspicion_ , but not… not enough evidence. Give that to Max—”

The cough, this time when it interrupts, comes more from his chest. “—to Max…when you see him.”

Morse sniffs, grins tightly, and his teeth, Jim can see, are tinted red.

“Shouldn’t be too long. Just…wish…I… more _time—_ ”

“It’s… _no_. You’ll be fine—just...” Tears flow down his face; he wipes at them and presses the jacket harder to the wound, but Morse just laughs, heaves out a sort of _sob_ —

Jim can hear the sirens growing closer; a familiar Jag pulls up to the mouth of the alley.

He doesn’t care.

Morse is lost in his own world for a moment, lips moving in speech, eyes glassy and slightly unfocused—

His labored breathing undertones it all.

Jim _hates_ this, hates it _all_ —

“Morse, what’ve you… why? You knew this place could get you hurt… so _why_?”

His friend’s gaze clears up slightly as he raises it to look again at Jim.

Morse smiles—just a quirk of the lips—but his eyes fill up with _fondness_ , and Jim doesn’t want to think that this will be the last time…

“Promised…” he coughs, and blood bubbles from between his lips. “…for George. Wasn’t enough.”

“You…you— _Morse--_ ”

But there’s no reply.

Wetness wells up only weakly between their joined fingers. The bleeding must be slowing now. (Jim doesn’t want to think of why that must be). He turns to assess his friend. 

He’s slumped over now, eyes hanging heavy like when it’s been a long day at the nick and he’s not rested for a week. He drops his head to rest against Jim’s shoulder.

And Jim realizes that for all his running about after murderers, insistences on working by himself, all his polite refusals of invites to the pub, Morse has never _wanted_ to be alone. Still doesn’t want it. 

It’s in the way he tenses up when Jim shifts a bit, like he thinks he’s going away. The arm behind his back is moved up to settle gently around his shoulders, and he mumbles a bit about _staying_ , his eyes gone glassy again. 

He doesn’t need to worry, though. Jim’s seen too many men who’d died alone to ever let Morse be one of them.

Carefully, slowly, Jim moves a bit closer, arranges Morse’s coat in his lap. Brushes a thumb over his knuckles, tries to keep him steady, keep him warm.

“S’alright, matey,” he says as one set of footsteps comes running down the alley toward them. “S’alright. Close your eyes. I’ve got you.”

Morse nods and mumbles something softly, sleepily, into Jim’s coat, moves a finger against his wrist.

Drifts softly asleep and, moments later, breathes his last.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Help" arrives too late.  
> But Jim realizes that maybe 'help' is no help at all.  
> Max must face the unimaginable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, y'all.  
> I made myself cry a few times writing this.  
> Please let me know what you think by leaving comments and kudos!  
> Enjoy!
> 
> Also, thank you to all those who've left such encouraging comments on this!

The new-looking black shoes that stop just within Jim’s line of vision don’t even cause him to blink.

He knows who they belong to. And he’d prefer not to have to deal.

“Is he…?”

Jim doesn’t reply.

Box leans down to put a finger on Morse’s wrist.

“Bloody hell.”

He stands up and turns back toward the alley’s entrance.

“Fred,” he calls. “You’d better come over here. Call off the ambulance, too. We’re roping this off as a crime scene.”

The shoes walk away, and Jim hears a car door slam a moment later.

“Jim? What’s going on here?”

Strange doesn’t turn his head, but he pictures the shoes that clip toward him across the alley’s floor.

Black leather; nothing flashy. Old, but not ragged.

Take care of your shoes, then they’ll take care of you, wasn’t that it?

He doesn’t know.

The footsteps stop a ways away; Jim wishes they would come closer.

“Jim. What is this. What’s happened?”

Morse’s head rests heavy on his shoulder.

“What’s it look like.” It must be that the old man can’t see Morse, that Jim must be getting in the way.

But he gets the feeling that Thursday knows.

The shoes stay where they are. There’s a scuff on the left instep.

Jim glances up. Thursday stands ten paces away, eyes trained elsewhere. Not on the hand that Jim still holds. Not on the copper-curled head that Morse laid down on Jim’s shoulder not five minutes past.

Jim releases Morse’s hand, now gone cold. Ever-so gently lifts his arm from his friend’s shoulders.

And Fred Thursday still doesn’t look.

 _Bloody look at him_ , he screams inside his head, then begins to rise, moving so as not to disturb Morse’s position.

It feels like he’s trying not to wake a sleeping child. 

He gets to his feet, waiting for some sort of movement, some sort of reply.

Thursday turns toward the mouth of the alley, and walks away.

He doesn’t even remove his hat.

“Sir.” Jim follows after him, desperate to see some sort of reaction out of the old man, something to prove that maybe he still gives a damn about Morse, about _any_ of this, but they’re nearly to the car before Thursday says anything.

“I’ve got to go call for a pathologist.”

Jim stops dead in his tracks. 

“Debryn. You’ve got to call for Debryn, you mean.”

Box, slithering into the conversation like a bloody snake, cuts in from the Jag’s front seat, his voice carrying from out the open door.

“A pathologist, he said. Whoever they’ve got available.”

And his blood boils.

“It’s Debryn, or it’s no one.”

Thursday suddenly turns to face him, something written on his features that Jim’s never even _seen_ —

“Enough, Sergeant.”

“No. _Bollocks_ to that _—”_ He’s had it with the distance-keeping routine the old man’s been pulling.

“That’s _enou—_ ”

“NO. It isn't.” Jim’s voice rings out, raw, tired, and accusing to Thursday, to Box, to whoever may damn well be listening.

His friend is dead. And Inspector Thursday ( _not the old man, never again the old man_ ) turns once more and walks to the Jag.

“You accepted that lad into your _home_.”

_And you wouldn’t even look at him._

Alone at the alley’s mouth like a guardian, like a _watchdog,_ with Morse’s body twenty paces behind him, Jim speaks again.

“Get him better than a butcher. Or I will.”

He turns and goes back by Morse to wait.

Max arrives fifteen minutes later, all tweed and solemn looks climbing out of a Morris.

“Strange.”

“Doctor.”

“I head there was an officer down ... Is it…”

He nods once, twice.

“Ah…I see.”

He brushes past the two other men with only a brief murmur of “Gentlemen,” then stops and turns back around to address Thursday.

“Inspector…” he starts, searching the older man’s face for something.

Failing to find it after a moment, he continues. “I’ll need a moment with him before I can tell you what’s what. Strange, if you would show me where to find him…”

Jim nods, gestures past the car and into the alley.

It’s odd, he thinks a few minutes later seeing Debryn—Max _—_ here like this…

As the doctor, having crouched down with a bowed head for a few moments over by Morse, begins to carefully make notes on a small pad, Jim realizes that it’s not Max’s presence at a crime scene like this that is so out of the ordinary—

It’s Morse’s.

Jim walks quietly towards the two of them, hands in pockets (the blood’s already dried to a flaky rust-brown).

“He’d have wanted it to be you, y’know.” he says, watching Debryn lift the corner of Morse’s jacket and take notes on the bloodstains there before sitting back on his heels.

The doctor gazes at the face before him with bespectacled eyes.

“I’d never pictured I’d have to do this… or at least not so soon.” He puts the pencil down, removes his gloves. “We’d always joked that it’d be liver failure, quite sensibly, too. At the rate he put away the drink…”

“You couldn’t have known.”

Max looks up at him with a penetrating gaze.

“About this, no. But that, sooner or later, someone would take issue with his need to _know_? Enough to kill him for it? He knew all along where that could lead him. And now…” He trails off, removes his glasses to clean them.

“This sort of wound…it’s rather painful. I take it you were with him, judging by the state of your hands.”

Jim murmurs a gruff affirmation.

“Did he…?” Debryn asks quietly, _personally_ , as though the answer is necessary not to his investigation but to his self.

_Did he suffer?_

“Yes,” replies Jim, turning his hands over in the light that filters down from above to pool at Morse’s feet. “But I was with him. At the end, he…”

_He grabbed my hand, and curled into me like a sleeping child…_

“At the end … I sat with him. He drifted off to sleep. Gentle-like…”

His voice breaks down to a whisper. “Softly.”

 _Like a sleeping child_ , thinks Jim again, feeling his stone façade crack to dust. He’s conscious of the paper weighing heavily in his pocket.

Of Morse, leaning against the wall with his eyes closed, his hair glowing in a passing ray of sun.

Debryn rises and replaces his glasses. “It must have brought him comfort. So… thank you.”

“Now,” murmurs the pathologist, half to himself and half to Morse, as if in farewell. “You lie by brooks too broad for leaping… Old friend, I wish you well.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max must do his duty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, y'all.  
> So here's another chapter.  
> We're almost to the spooky stuff, I swear.  
> But first, Max.  
> Let me know what you think by leaving comments or kudos!  
> Enjoy!

Max heard an ambulance pull out of Cowley General not too long ago. He’d been taking a sterile cloth to the post-mortem table when the siren had gone wailing past.

And of course he’d thought nothing of it; it happened all the time.

Being a pathologist, though, he’d gotten the call not a half-hour later that his services were required…And he’d known that that ambulance hadn’t arrived in time.

It must be a terrible feeling, he thinks now, pulling the Morris into the car park.

Knowing that help is rushing toward you at four miles over the speed limit, but knowing also that it won’t do any good.

He turns off the engine and simply sits in the car as an ambulance pulls in. Watches as they open the back doors and unload a gurney with a sheet thrown over it.

He knows what he must do. Knows who is under the sheet. Knows where the gurney is headed.

But now, in the forty-five odd minutes he has before he must be ready to do his job…

Max Debryn starts to cry.

Nearly three-quarters of an hour later find him in the mortuary, preparing to do his duty for a friend who lies two steps away.

It won’t do him any good to dwell on the details of his situation.

_How he’d talked to Morse on the phone this morning. How grimly resolved his friend had sounded…_

Not yet, anyways.

Footsteps come echoing down the hallway; the morgue’s double doors swing open. Max turns quickly around and sees…

“Inspector.”

It’s a bit of a shock, seeing Box here; he’d expected them to send someone a bit more removed from the whole thing to oversee the post-mortem…

“Inspector McNutt’s out on holiday,” Box explains. “We’re to take care of the case till he’s back.” 

Max nods, dries his hands off.

“The personal effects are over on that tray,” he says, looking down at a clipboard, making a few notes.

“Not very much, is there.”

Max looks up to see Box picking through the items found in Morse’s pockets.

“Warrant card,” he says to the policeman. “Wallet, keys.”

“Notebook.”

“Yes, that too.”

“Can’t really read it, though, can I.”

“And why would that be.” Max grimaces as he imagines Morse making some snide comment on limited brain capacity, or else illiteracy.

There’s a pause, a frustrated shuffling of paper.  
“Bloody pages’re mostly stuck together."

“Blood _does_ tend to dry that way.”

He can practically hear Box bristling, but he continues.

“He’d put it in the inner pocket of his blazer. It rather took the brunt of the bloodflow.”

Box makes an affirmative noise.

“Only thing I can really make out is something in the front…’Call Joycie for’…” he sighs. “Well, doesn’t matter. I’ve got everything I need.”

The rest of the post mortem passes in relative silence, except for the clinically necessary comments.

Max is starting to thread a needle when Box speaks up.

“How d’you do it?”

He looks up from his task, almost glad for the distraction.

“ _it?_ ”

“In cases like this…how d’you…”

Debryn raises an eyebrow.

The inspector changes tactics, crossing his arms. “Y’know, when I was with _robbery_ , I worked a case for a couple days with the Cowley lot…S’where I first met him. Morse… But there was this _kid_ —don’t know _why_ they had him on the case—”

Max cuts in, keenly uncomfortable with where this seems to be heading.

“Is there a point to this story?”

“Recently,” Box continues, “I found out he’s dead—"

 _George_. _He means George._

“—and _you_ cut him up.”

Silence.

“You _knew_ him, but not _too_ well. So I can maybe understand it, you taking the case, being the one to do the cutting. But with _Morse_ …”

Box, with a sneer, leaves the rest of the sentence hanging in the morgue’s chilled air.

Max drops the needle on the table by Morse’s hand, chances a glance at his friend’s face.

He looks down at his hands before answering.

“You’re asking how I can possibly _stand_ doing the post-mortem—”

“That’s right. On your own friend.”

The room is silent. Another ambulance wails somewhere in the distance.

Max grips the table’s edge.

“Not _on_ ,” he says quietly. “ _For._ Don’ _t_ make the post-mortem sound like some sick experiment. It’s not.”

Box waits.

“By saying these things, Inspector, you are doing those who’ve departed the greatest disservice one can.”

The other man makes to interrupt again, but Max holds up a hand, which, surprisingly enough, actually works as a means of keeping Box silent.

“Calling what I had to do for George Fancy, for that _child_ earlier this summer ‘ _cutting them up_ ’…” He picks the needle back up. Threads it successfully.

“…I am a pathologist, Inspector Box. And not a single body that lies on this table is _ever_ cut up. To say that would be tantamount to calling Fancy, to calling Ann Kirby—to calling Morse—pieces of _meat_.”

Box remains silent, so Max continues.

“They’re not meat; they’re people—and I’m a _pathologist_. If the only way I can help a person once they’re dead is to assist in finding what made them so, then I will.”

He looks up to find himself staring Box dead in the eye.

“And how unfair would it be to Morse if I denied him the same as everyone else? He was my friend. One of the best people I…” His words falter…

“I am tired, Inspector. I am grieving. But I will _not_ have you say that my job and what it dictates that I must do makes me a butcher.”

Max bends his head back to his work, taking care that the stitches are even.

It wouldn’t do, with Morse, to do anything other than his best.

The man across the table from him clears his throat.

“Y’know… when we first arrived on the scene… The one who was with him, one of the ones from Cowley…he kicked up a bit of a fuss. Insisted that Fred call for _you_ , specifically.”

“Hmm.” Max can’t bring himself to answer that. He’s exhausted.

“Anyway, I didn’t get it. Thought to myself, ‘well, one sawbones’s the same as another.’…”

When the doctor, busy with the stitching, still doesn’t answer at first, Box turns his head to the windows in frustration, then forward once more.

“Hmm," Debryn replies noncommittally. "Strange knows what he’s about. Just as Morse did.”

Box checks his watch.

“I’ve got to go. I’ll send Fred by in a while for the official report.”

He turns, waits a moment. Then leaves. 

Max cuts off the surgical wire.

With a glance more at his friend’s pale brow, he covers him over once again with a sheet and prepares to clean up.


	4. Una macchia...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Banco e spento...
> 
> A glass of whiskey, a record, a pen.  
> Two men enter an empty office, two men leave.
> 
> I suggest that you start this piece a couple minutes before you start reading, just to establish the Mood, and to try and align the music you're listening to with the music in the scene. 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79wNdAwggVk&list=PLzwEh6ykdKEQG2GA4NZpJ4EgbkMG_ZRtj&index=6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoooooooly crap. 
> 
> I've been working on this chapter forEVER. And by forever, I mean that I wrote most of it in May, left it utouched in my folder since the end of June, and opened it up again last week.  
> Unfortunately, this chapter is a bit too late for Halloween, but have no fear. You don't need a designated day to be spooky. Spookiness is a year-round thing. 
> 
> I guess this is a bit of a break from the angst. Or maybe not, depending on how you look at it.  
> I love you all so much, and am really happy to be back!  
> Remember to leave kudos and comments! Please!

It is eight o’clock, and lights are beginning to shut off in Castle Gate police station.

“You game to head down the pub, Fred?”

Fred Thursday, passing by his governor’s office at the end of his day, shakes his head.

“No… No, think I’d best head home. Long day, ‘n’all that. Tomorrow, maybe.”

Ronnie Box, leaned back in his chair , two glasses of whiskey set before him, nods and stubs out his cigarette.

“Right…Right, tomorrow…Mind how you go, then.”

Fred touches the brim of his hat.

“Sir.”

The elevator ride down to the basement is long and silent, punctuated by the periodic _ding_ of the passing floors and the ever-present hum of the cables doing their work.

He steps out into the area by the vending machines and freezes.

The door to the basement office gapes open like the entrance to a crypt.

Nothing but darkness in there. And silence.

It shouldn’t be like that.

His mind made up, he steps forward and descends the few steps through the doorway, removing his hat as he does so.

Fumbling along the wall yields a light switch, and the lights shudder on beneath his fingers.

There. That’s a bit better.

Nothing to be done about the quiet.

If Morse was here, he’d probably fill it with humming, or pen-clicking, or—

Morse isn’t here, though.

Best get used to it.

The hat goes back on; the lights go back off. He shuts the door behind him.

Time to go home.

The door to the office opens with a slow creak just as he rounds the corner to the lifts. On clicks the light, like a child turning on a flashlight beneath the covers to read after bedtime.

Thursday, oblivious to all this, walks out into the parking lot.

Back in the room, a weight settles into the creaky office chair. The sounds echo unusually in the concrete space. And then it is silent. A minute passes. Two, three. Something, a pen, maybe, begins to click.

A floor above, Box shifts back in his chair. It’s late. He could head to the pub… but after a day like this, he thinks he understands where the old man was coming from when he said he’d go home. A drink here, maybe, and then he’ll leave.

He wrinkles the smell of the morgue he visited earlier from his nose, wondering why it still clings. He thinks of the pathologist, bent over his work, yet somehow seeming to stand taller than ever.

He can respect that. 

Downstairs in the basement office, the briefcase laying on the desk clicks open to reveal a record player. The needle lifts and is laid aside. Slowly, thoughtfully, and with a creak, the chair turns around to a shelf filled with LPs at the room’s back.

It is dark in the hall, and a record begins to play.

In a well-kept cottage house somewhere across Oxford, Max Debryn sits in his den nursing a glass of gin, while Jim Strange, in his own flat, stares at a pile of bloodied clothes on his bathroom floor. A bloody square of paper digs into his palm. He clicks the light off, closes the door, and walks downstairs to the kitchen for a drink.

The door to an inspector’s house closes behind him as pulls it to and sets his hat on the hall stand.

“Fred? Is that you?” 

“Yeah, Win. It’s me.” He looks down at his shoes. The left one’s got a bit of a scuff on it; he'll have to fix that. And the right one…

He chokes a bit, bends over quickly to unlace them, then walks into the den to collapse on the sofa next to his wife.

The shoes sit abandoned in the hallway, the left one scuffed, and the right one with a spot of blood on the toe.

Back in an office at Thames Valles Police Station, Ronnie Box collects his jacket and puts an empty glass of whiskey back into a drawer. The other tumbler, still full, he grabs from off his desk. He locks up behind him and heads down the stairs toward the basement.

Back at his first nick, they had a constable who’d been beaten into a coma while on the job. The night he’d died in hospital, Box had seen the DI place a glass of whiskey on the man’s desk.

He hadn’t understood it at the time. He still doesn’t, not entirely. But he’s come to do the same, nonetheless.

Walking down the hallway now, it sounds like maybe’s someone’s beat him to it. There’s music coming from down there, classical from the sound of it. He’s heard that’s what Morse listened to. Nothing but.

A man and a woman’s voice, buzzing from the far-away office with the music, hush into quiet.

There’s a light on down the hall. That’s probably where he’s headed, based on the music pouring out the door.

Who left the light on? And the record? Thursday, if he had to put money on it.

He finds himself grateful, whoever it was. Somehow the noise makes it easier to distract himself from the fact that he’s walking toward a dead man’s office.

The tempo suddenly changes, picks up a bit. Something a bit tidier, a bit more businesslike. In the near dark, he almost drops the glass when a woman’s voice joins it suddenly.

_Una macchia…_

He approaches the doorway, carefully going down the steps into the room.

_E qui tuttora… Via te dico!_

Why does he shiver, as though something in the room, unseen but glaringly obvious is telling him something.

He looks at the vent over in the corner. Odd. It shouldn’t be this cold.

It’s a bleak little place, really. He’s never been down here; Alan had been the one to laughingly tell him that they’d put Morse in the basement.

_Una... Due... gli è questa l'ora!_

_Tremi tu?_

_Non osi entrar…_

‘Underground—where he belongs.’ Alan had laughed, and Ronnie had laughed with him. At the time, it’d been funny, a joke. Morse, pissed-off, crawling out of a hole in the ground to do policework.

Now, though…

He shakes his head, a bit ashamed, a bit resigned.

Now Morse really _will_ be underground. And the office feels like a mausoleum.

The voice from the record player, small and almost horrified, rises up.

_Chi poteva in quel vegliardo_ _tanto sangue immaginar_

She repeats the last word, then pauses.

How often had Morse just _sat_ here and listened to music with his arms behind his head, leaned all the way back in his seat.

He goes to turn the music down to a normal level, feeling the need to say something, but not knowing exactly how to begin it—

Only to find that the knob on the record player is stuck.

He frowns, fiddles with it, then decides it’s best left alone. It’ll be no good if the damn thing breaks off in his hand. He’ll just have to leave it, then.

Why not sit down here for a couple minutes?

Might as well wait underground a bit before he goes.

It’s easy enough to set the glass of whiskey down on the desk and lift a chair from a stack of them in the corner, to set it down facing the desk. His fingers itch for something to do; he settles for holding them in his lap.

The music swells around him, and the little space is filled. If this is a mausoleum, Ronnie’s pretty sure that this is the way Morse would want it to be. A glass of whiskey, a record…

_Di sangue umano sa qui sempre…_

_Arabia intera…_

_Rimondar si piccol mano…_

He looks slowly, mindlessly, down at his hands in his lap, then back up at the desk.

Something creaks, and his eyes snap reflexively back up.

_Co' suoi balsami non può!_

_Co' suoi balsami non può…_

_No no, non può._

Had the glass of whiskey been where it is now a moment ago? He thought he’d put it down next to the record player, not behind it…

His mind must be playing tricks, he tells himself wearily. That’s all.

It’s nearly time to be heading home.

The music continues, rising in volume until it surrounds him like a roll of thunder, or a trumpet blast, or…

_…Or via, ti sbratta!_

_B_ _anco è spento—_

Ronnie braces his palms on his knees and rises, casting one last glance around the room. He’s done what he came to do. Nothing more, nothing less. 

_E dalla fossa chi mori non surse ancor…_

He shuts the door as he leaves, closing off the light. The record player, he leaves on.

Like Thursday before him, he’s already in the elevator by the time the lights flick back on behind him, before the door opens back up. 

As his car peels out of the parking lot and off down the road towards home, a man, somewhere across Oxford, is cleaning a knife in the low light of his basement. He’s scrubbed up his hands and changed his clothes since earlier in the day… But he doesn’t see the red-brown lines caked into the grooves of a ring he wears on his left hand. 

Even if he did, of course, he wouldn’t be able to entirely scrub it off. 

Back in the basement at Castle Gate, the aria is nearly over, and a pen is clicking. The whiskey glass moves across the desk, the chair creaks once more. 

And the record plays on. 

… _Non surse ancor._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have some Box POV, because I'm a hoe, and I wanted to feature him, but felt that it would ruin the Vibes to mention his biceps. Or his jawline. Or the poloshirts*--But ANYWAY.  
> Yeah, Box hoes, come get y'all juice.
> 
> Anyway, the music playing during this scene is the Macbeth sleepwalking scene/aria. I kind of split up the bits and pieces because Box wouldn't really be hearing the whole thing... But I hope you will want to. It really sets the vibes.
> 
> Italian here:  
> Una macchia è qui tuttora!  
> Via, ti dico, o maledetta!  
> Una due gli è questa l'ora!  
> Tremi tu? Non osi entrar?  
> ...  
> Chi poteva in quel vegliardo  
> Tanto sangue immaginar? 
> 
> Di sangue umano sa qui sempre...  
> Arabia intera rimondar sì piccol mano  
> Co' suoi balsami non può!
> 
> I panni indossa della notte!  
> Or via, ti sbratta!  
> Banco è spento--
> 
> (And here comes the good part)
> 
> \--E dalla fossa chi mori...  
> non surse ancor.
> 
> Translation:  
> A spot is ever here ...  
> Away, I tell you, O cursed thing!  
> One .. two ... this is the hour!  
> Do you tremble? Do you dare not enter?
> 
> Whoever could have imagined  
> the old man to have had so much blood in him!
> 
> Human blood stains forever ...  
> All Arabia cannot cleanse so little a hand  
> with its balsams.
> 
> Come now, pull yourself together!  
> Banquo is dead--
> 
> \--and from the grave, those who died do not rise again...
> 
> And then it continues from there.  
> I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, and I hope you all enjoyed it.  
> Yeah.  
> I'll just... leave this here.  
> Tell me what you think!
> 
> *Or the hair. Or--


	5. they carry bright back to the coiner the mintage of man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> THE LADS in their hundreds to Ludlow come in for the fair,  
> There’s men from the barn and the forge and the mill and the fold,  
> The lads for the girls and the lads for the liquor are there,  
> And there with the rest are the lads that will never be old. 
> 
> There’s chaps from the town and the field and the till and the cart,  
> And many to count are the stalwart, and many the brave,  
> And many the handsome of face and the handsome of heart,  
> And few that will carry their looks or their truth to the grave. 
> 
> I wish one could know them, I wish there were tokens to tell  
> The fortunate fellows that now you can never discern;  
> And then one could talk with them friendly and wish them farewell  
> And watch them depart on the way that they will not return. 
> 
> But now you may stare as you like and there’s nothing to scan;  
> And brushing your elbow unguessed-at and not to be told  
> They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,  
> The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.
> 
> A.E. Housman, The Lads in their Hundreds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okie dokie.  
> So SOMEBODY in the comments in chapter 3 mentioned that they really like this sad stuff... you know who you are.  
> Well, here's some more of that.  
> I'm so excited to hear what you guys think of this. Don't forget to leave comments and kudos!

It takes a certain type, to die young.

Innocent. Fair of face. _Well-intentioned_.

He fits it, near perfectly. Add in a dash of headstrong, a sprinkle of foolhardy, a lingering taste of sweet rue, and not enough thyme.

He’s the right type, and then some.

_Always rushed into things without using that head of his_ , people will shake their heads and sigh.

_Such a shame,_ they’ll whisper, looking sadly at his empty desk, _a bright lad like that. Whole life ahead of him…_

These things are all irrelevant to him at the moment though. He is dying, you see, and the poor sods that find themselves in that position rarely have time to think on what makes them a candidate to be where they are.

As it is, he finds himself on the ground, blood rising up thick in his young, healthy lungs. He can’t scream, can’t do much of anything but cough, hard at first and then more weakly, until his breath is confined to compressed rattling and a faint prayer to whoever’s listening to not let him die alone.

His hands are strong, though, he’s able to put pressure on the wound. Might even make it long enough to tell them what he thinks happened, to _live_ maybe, to—

Maybe he’ll make it. After all, he _is_ the right type. Healthy, young.

Company’s found him, too, just like he asked for, its face familiar only in passing, but from passing at _work_ , that _must_ count for something... It slinks up to him through the haze of pain, head haloed by a light from across the room as it halts, stands tall at his feet.

He rasps something weakly to it, maybe a “help”, maybe a plea for more time. 

“Sorry ‘bout this, lad,” it whispers, voice rough in his ear. “Nothing personal, see. S’just business.”

One last flash of light fills his vision; pain takes over anew in his chest.

Choking, coughing, gurgling.

Such a shame. An ugly sight to see, and for a handsome lad like him, too…

He’s the right type to die in the bloom of youth.

And he does.

They all agree, afterward, that he should never have gone into that pool hall. Not without backup. Not alone. Help was on the way, when he went in. He could’ve waited.

But then…

Headstrong, well-intentioned. Trusting, too.

He never suspected that the shots to down him might come from behind.

The morning after he dies, poor, handsome George Fancy watches the men come and go from around his empty desk and wonders if any of them knew about it.

It takes a certain type to die young. This we know.

It takes a certain type, too, to die in the line of duty.

To do both, and _more_ … This is a category all its own.

As of now, only one person fits this type.

Fair of face. Headstrong, yes. Foolhardy, less than he used to be. The rue, for him, is bitter, the thyme already limited from the beginning.

_It was…it was a matter of time_ , they’ll whisper guiltily, trying to steel themselves against the fact that they’ve lost one of their brightest.

_Stuck his nose in one too many times_ , will be the consensus around water coolers, in locker rooms. _Never could leave well enough alone_.

Not all of them will say this, of course. But most.

None of this matters to him at the moment, though, not that it ever mattered to him in the first place.

He is asking his friend to go get something for him from the car.

_Sorry, Jim_ , he says to him, and smiles sheepishly. _Should have grabbed it when we parked. You know how I am with notebooks…_

The friend shakes his head, but leaves all the same to go grab it.

It takes a certain type to die young, and in the line of duty.

To die _cleverly_ …

His notebook rests against his ribs. He pats it once to be sure, and wills his friend to take his time.

In it is written the second step in the dance that will finish this. The second step and nothing else.

The first step takes the form of a little paper square in his coat pocket, and will surely be making its way back to him soon by way of an irritated former roommate.

Footsteps in the alley behind him; a whispered _psst._ He follows the beckoning arm around a corner and out of sight. 

His friend, meanwhile, rummages around in the car, to no avail.

Might as well just grab the coat. Nine times out of ten, Morse keeps the bloody thing in one of its pockets.

Jim starts the walk back to the alleyway.

Clever, determined, headstrong.

This is what he is. This is not what they call him.

These things are all irrelevant to him at the moment, though. He is dying now, you see, and the poor sods that find themselves in that position rarely have time to think on what makes them a candidate to be where they are.

Neat bit of luck, then, he’d thought it all out beforehand, the risks of standing in the alley alone and unarmed.

Now, sitting against a wall with his hands folded before him, he’s got the information he thought this little meeting might get him.

He’d lack the solid evidence to prove it, based solely on this encounter, of course. He knows this. One man’s word against another’s…

Which is why he smiles despite the pain, because there is a notebook in his blazer, and a paper square in his coat pocket, and more for the others to go on if they follow the steps he’s left them.

Footsteps coming toward him. He doesn’t look up.

Shouting, a coat thrown at him before his friend takes off down the alley to call for help.

He waits, and tries not to let too much hope creep in. Nothing's ever certain.

But maybe… His hands are strong, he’s able to put pressure on the wound. Might even make it long enough to tell them what he thinks happened, to _live_ maybe, to—

No matter how hard he presses, he can’t seem to stop _coughing_.

He just has to hold on long enough to tell Strange what to do, to make sure that he _will_ understand why he’s done this, even if he doesn’t right now.

Choking, coughing, doubling over…

Strange comes back.

It’s not so bad, this, despite the pain. A warm body to lean into, a hand covering his own…

A shaft of sunlight gleams on the wall above his head, then quickly passes on.

He’s the type to die in the bloom of youth, in the line of duty, in pursuit of justice.

And he does.

Brave. Fair-faced. Loyal.

When he goes, it’s like falling asleep.

Later that evening, he watches his old inspector look at his empty desk before walking back up the steps.

A record plays into the silent office.

He is left a glass of whiskey by a man he never thought would give him _anything_ but a headache, and resolves to correct this unfortunate misstep on Box’s part by leaving the empty whiskey glass in the middle of the man’s desk. Upside down, so he knows someone was there.

Just to spook him, of course. Nothing sinister.

Yes, he’ll do that. And then he’ll try not to go mad with the fact that he _can_ do anything of the sort.

Because death was supposed to be the end. And apparently, it isn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> George Fancy is the right type to die in the bloom of youth.  
> Fair-faced. Headstrong. Pure of heart, dumb of ass.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angst.  
> ALL the angst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone!  
> I'm back with your dose of angst and spookiness.  
> Mostly angst though.  
> I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, until it was suddenly deleted, and then I had some despair, then some fun re-writing it a bit angstier. Hope you all enjoy!!!!  
> Your comments have been giving me life; please keep them coming.

_And there's nothing short of dying_ _half as lonesome as the sound_

_on the sleeping city sidewalks..._

_Sunday morning coming down._

He lets his leg, hanging over the side of the concrete banister outside the police station, swing in time with the song in his head.

It isn't a Sunday morning…probably. He’ll have to check a calendar once he gets inside.

The people stride past him, not sparing a glance.

MacCready, Bobbins, Nelson. All members of the morning crowd.

There’s Strange, straightening his tie and holding the door for a WPC. Same as ever.

The constable follows them in, catching the door at the halfway point of its closing trajectory.

Now, he thinks, is the real start of the day. Not when the sun rises, not when he wakes up, because he doesn’t actually _sleep_ , but now. When the morning crowd shuffles in to the station.

It’s a simple schedule, really. Pick a person when the day begins, follow them around ‘til it ends.

Unless he gets bored. That happens sometimes. Often, actually.

Looking around him at the figures waiting in the lobby, he raises his hand and points to…Bobbins.

Nervous-looking, but that'll pass. Fresh into the CID out of uniform. Quiet. A rule-follower.

Lad ought to keep it up; he could go far.

Still, thinks the constable, following Bobbins into a lift just as the doors close.

Something to be said for going off on your own.

But not _too_ much.

After all, it’s what’d gotten him…well... the way he is now.

His final moments were a messy affair.

He’d been so _sure_ that help had finally come, watching the man approach, stepping over the corpses and the heroin.

That face, in all of its semi-familiarity, looming over him.

A muzzle flash.

More blood. Coughing.

Darkness.

The next bits are hazy, filled first with sounds ( _shoutingMorseThursday—Doctor Debryn?_ ), and then with sights ( _tilefloortable…hospital basement?_ ), until finally the two had come together and he’d been sitting at his desk in the nick like nothing had ever happened.

Then had come Shirley, (he’d tried to run after her, and couldn’t move away from the desk).

And next his _own_ voice as he’d talked, interrupted, screamed his throat raw ( _Look at me, look at melookatmegoddamnyou_ ) in an effort to make himself known, and they’d all looked…through him.

After everyone had left the room for the night, darkness.

All the lights had been put out but the one in the hall. He’d shifted a bit in his chair, taking comfort in the way it swung in response to his movements.

He was alone in the bullpen until footsteps echoed their way into the room.

An averagely tall figure, a straight-backed silhouette, a whiskey glass in hand. The hall light had gleamed off the rank insignia of the approaching someone.

He’d held his breath (did he still need to breathe?) at the sound of the glass on the desk in front of him, then looked up.

Mr. Bright, dignified and steady, taking two steps back.

“To your life,” quiet and solemn. “And your bravery.”

Silence.

More personally, with no small degree of sadness…

“Godspeed, Constable”. He’d stood there a moment, staring forward at what must have seemed to him like an empty desk.

And had left.

Darkness.

Alone at last, retracing, with a finger, his signature on a bit of paperwork. 

_G-E-O-R-G-E,_ he traced, and _F-A-N-C-Y._

Moonlight turned the whiskey to deepest amber as the night began to speak.

Whispered the glass, full before him, _a choice_.

 _Stay or pass_ , continued the darkness.

_Choose._

He’d raised the drink, tilted his head back with the glass at his lips.

And the choice had brought him here. Castle Gate, for the past however many months.

First few days had been hell; he’d just…wandered about, picking things up only to put them down again.

The routine he keeps now had been born out of loneliness, taking its shape as he’d followed the old familiar faces around and wished he was with them.

Thursday, busted down a rank and serving that ape from Robbery; Jim, doing some managerial whoosis; Mr. Bright, in Traffic.

( _A Choice, whispered the glass_ ).

He’d seen Morse a few times, too, over in…Witney, was it? It’s easier to visit him now, of course, given that he’s just in the basement.

George frowns, thinking of the music he’d heard from downstairs last night.

What he wouldn’t give for a record player…

The lift dings in front of him; the doors open.

Back to the routine.

Next step’s easy as breathing –not that he even _needs_ to breathe—he just finds himself doing it out of habit.

Round a corner, down some steps: CID, just like that.

Bobbins makes his way over to a desk by the windows, unaware of his follower, who—

Ah.

A _sunspot_.

George alters his course ever so slightly, moving over to take in the morning light that comes in through the glass.

The sunlight’s one of the few things he can actually feel. Maybe it’s not like it used to be, but at least it’s warm.

Momentarily pleased, he smiles—and promptly scowls at the sudden sensation of well-remembered blood beginning to flow from the holes bullets forced into his body.

These are some of the other things he can still feel. 

It’s taken time, but he’s better at managing it now than he was at the start.

He stills, concentrates. Shivers, and the blood goes away.

This bleeding, whatever it is, indicates the nearness of one _thing_ and one _thing_ only. "Thing”, and not “person”; it’s very intentional.

He turns to see said _thing_ approaching from across the room.

(Some monsters take on human form. Doesn't mean they're people).

Bobbins must see too, judging by the quiet squeak and the shuffling of papers atop the desk.

“Mornin’, Jem,” comes that voice.

( _Nothing personal_ , remembers George. _S’just business_.)

“Good morning." And then, hurriedly, "Sir.”

“How’s that paperwork?”

Bobbins flushes, stills his hands atop the papers.

“Coming along well, sir. Already halfway through—”

Jago feigns shock.

“Only _halfway_?” he says, raising his eyebrows. “Chop chop, Constable.”

The pleasure of the sun is long-gone, replaced completely by the overwhelming desire to rip the other man’s spine out through his throat.

Jago slinks off.

Smug bastard.

A white-knuckled grip holds George firm to the sunny windowsill.

The sunspot’s still there; his desire to settle in for the day isn’t. Even less so, now it’s clear that Bobbins’ll be spending it on paperwork.

Better find someone else to tail.

Maybe Morse?…Strange? He’ll figure something out.

In the meantime…

He forces himself to relax. To move around.

Curiosity and boredom have him phasing through the closed door of the DCI’s office five minutes later.

Box.

Another smug bastard, if he’s ever seen one—He doesn’t even have to look to know what the man’s posture will be.

Leaning back, hands behind his head, not a care in the world—

George looks over to check—

Oh.

Leaned _forward_ , elbows on the desk, hands folded as though…in prayer. Worry's writ itself across his features. He stares unfalteringly at something on the desk before him.

That unceasing line of sight, once followed, leads to…

A whiskey glass. Empty. Upside down.

George snorts and turns his head to gaze out through the blinds.

(Ronnie looks up. Blinks, and the figure by his closed office door is gone).

The constable doesn’t notice the movement, scrambling as he is to get out of the way as Inspector Thursday knocks and enters—

But he didn’t scramble quickly enough. He winces in sympathy at the old man’s shiver as Thursday walks right through him.

“Fred.”

“Sir.” Thursday looks around, at the desk, at Box himself, before continuing.

“Long night, was it?”

A pause. Box unclasps his hands to run one through his hair.

“Couldn’t sleep.”

George frowns.

_Why?_

Another pause before the man at the desk clears his throat.

“D’you mind sending Alan in here?”

Hate gets the best of curiosity. Time to go.

He makes sure to walk _directly_ through Jago on the way out, taking fierce pleasure in the man’s sudden and violent shiver.

The sight’s almost worth the blood it sends down his back, out of his chest. Rising up into his mouth.

He coughs and shivers it all away, keeping an ear out as Inspector Thursday exits the office, orders Bobbins to fetch Mr. Bright from Traffic.

Hmm.

A calendar catches his eye.

It’s Friday, not Sunday.

He’ll just pop over and do a quick check on the Rumor Mill, then, and their inevitable daily gathering.

The Rumor Mill. He laughs to himself at the little joke.

Really, it’s just a group of sergeants that gossip together by the water cooler.

Still, thinks George, drifting over to them, it’s satisfying to have given them a name. Helps him feel organized.

“—late today, then?”

“— _I_ heard he’s in hospital—”

Rough and precise, the voice cuts in from far across the room.

“Ladies.”

The Mill turns collectively to look at Jago.

“Five minutes, main area of this floor. DCI Box wants everyone gathered.”

Two minutes later, George reaps the benefits of not being seen among the slowly forming crowd; he can listen in all he likes, and no one’ll say a thing.

A flash of brass from the back of the room.

Bright.

George turns to see better, and finds himself suddenly the target of the old man’s gaze.

Can he… _see him_?

He turns cautiously back around to find…

Jim. Two paces behind him, giving Bright a wave.

George deflates.

You’d think he’d have gotten used to this by now.

Someone says something loudly at the front of the crowd; he returns his attention to the noise around him.

(Caught up in the hubbub, he fails to notice that Mr. Bright steps _around_ him instead of directly through on the way past.)

A hush descends once Box’s door opens to reveal the man himself, hands in trouser pockets, walking as strongly as ever. The perfect picture of ‘business as usual in Castle Gate’.

Smarmy pri—

No; something’s off again. 

The face is grave.

_Why?_

A long-fingered hand is raised for quiet, and George finds himself leaning forward to listen.

“I know that some of you lot might’ve heard a piece of what happened yesterday.”

 _Brilliant,_ thinks George. _Keep it vague, Ronnie._

A little drifting, and he’s now closer to the front.

“But I thought it’d be best if you heard the whole thing from me.”

The Rumor Mill stands up straighter.

“Yesterday, we lost one of our own.”

The blood starts trickling slowly when Jago shouts for quiet against the wave of murmurs, but George leaves it as it is. Stands up straighter, even.

Everyone, everyone leans in shoulder to shoulder, and someone among them is asking now, low and deathly frightened,

“ _Who?_ ”

It’s a few moments before he realizes that the voice is his own.  
  


And in reply, “Detective Sergeant Morse—”

Time stops suddenly.

“No.” It slips out alongside Box’s next words, blends with them until it’s a duet audible only to one, like a stupid thing off an opera record—

“—dedication to—"

“ _No, no, nononononono_ —"

He gets out a howl, and then the denial turns to choking, gurgling as he begins to bleed in earnest now from the mouth, from the bullet holes, from his dead, dead, heart, and he coughs, chokes, cries his way to the floor.

It was only him, only _him_ , no more, but now it's _not-_

And to George Fancy, it's like dying all over again, only no one can see it.

No one.

( _One_ , maybe, but he’s too floored by the news to take it in, and George himself is currently busy battling his reflexes, reminding himself between slowing coughs and gurgling, half-forced gasps to just _let go_.)  
  


The blood flows uncontested, now, and he sits tiredly on the floor. 

_They killed him. Morse. They killed him_. 

Still dripping, he rises and stumbles through the crowd to a chair, uncaring of the shivers he leaves in his wake.

The opera duet from earlier’s become a solo, Box’s voice carrying ‘round the room in snippets and solemnity.

“—source meeting gone bad—”

He knows he’s leaving red handprints on his face by rubbing at his eyes; he just doesn’t care.

“—further investigations pending.”

 _They killed him_. 

Box is looking about the room, fixing each man with a hardened gaze.

 _Look to your right hand_ , thinks George bitterly, stifling the bloodflow, not bothering to shake off the stains it’s painted him with. _Look to it, and cut it off._

But then, perhaps Box knows already. Or doesn’t.

He feels a sunspot land across the side of his face, closes his eyes and lets the warmth pass through him. At last, the bleeding comes to a stop.

Maybe he’ll just walk around like this all day, disheveled and bloody.

One final cough, and he gathers himself, spits blood onto the carpet from the corner of his mouth. 

He hopes that one day they see the stains. All his lifeblood, again and again, like nothing. 

He became a policeman, and this is his repayment.  
  
“You’re all to leave his office alone ‘til we’re able to collect his things and get them to the family.”

Clarity cuts through like a knife. 

Office. Basement. Things— _record player_.

_(Whispered the glass, full before him, a choice.)_

There was opera music in the basement last night.

Fighting the dread that claws through him, he rises from the chair, praying that he’s not too late.

 _Stay or pass_.

One step forward.

Another.

One last glance at Mr. Bright, at Box.

He shivers off the bloodstains and phases directly through the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now, the memes.  
> \---  
> Fancy, entering Box's office: What're all these books? I didn't think Box could even READ.  
> \---  
> Half the CID, shivering violently midway through the announcement of Morse's death: Hmmm. It's a bit drafty in here.  
> *cut to George, sobbing and coughing up blood in a chair halfway across the room*  
> \---  
> More memes pending. 
> 
> Let me know what you think!!! Please!!!  
> No comment is too short, and we DO accept keysmashes here!!


End file.
